The human heart, on average, takes eight-tenths of a second to complete a single beat.

This means that the Rangers came within a heartbeat—literally, one heartbeat—of heading to the dressing room with the score tied at zero after the first period Monday night. The sellout crowd at Madison Square Garden, which spent the past 20 years waiting for this moment to arrive, came within a heartbeat of erupting once more as their team skated off the ice.

But, as the Rangers learned, so much can change in a heartbeat. In that instant, the Los Angeles Kings deflated their opponents, silenced the 18,006 fans in attendance and effectively destroyed the Rangers' pursuit of the Stanley Cup.

With 0.8 second remaining in the first period, center Jeff Carter squirted a shot past goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, propelling the Kings to a 3-0 victory in Game 3 of the Cup finals. They now lead the best-of-seven series three games to none and can close it out Wednesday. The Rangers must win four in a row against one of the NHL's best never-die playoff teams if they want to claim their first championship since 1994.

On Carter's shot, the puck glanced off the blade of Rangers defenseman Dan Girardi's skate, then off Lundqvist, on its way to the net, crossing the line just before time expired. Though the Kings scored twice more later, Carter's buzzer-beater set the tone for the evening. The Rangers never recovered.

"It's just kind of the way it's been going," said Girardi, whose turnover in overtime led to the Kings' game-winning goal in Game 1. "That's obviously not the way you want to finish a period."

Until that point, the Rangers appeared to grab much of the early momentum. They controlled the action throughout the period, igniting the raucous crowd here. Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said that he "felt we played a real good period."

And that made the final moments so devastating. The Rangers entered the night with the odds against them but felt confident they could still recover if luck turned in their favor. For the first two games, it seemed every fortunate break or fortuitous bounce went in the Kings' favor.

Unfortunately for the Rangers, the trend continued Monday. Girardi's skate just barely nicked Carter's shot, which likely prevented Lundqvist from making the save. That tiny, almost imperceptible deflection permanently sucked the air from the building.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, it marked just the fifth goal in Stanley Cup Finals history to come in the last second of a period.

"It's just one of those plays where with a little luck there, that puck ends up in the netting or in the glass," Lundqvist said. "But unfortunately, with half a second left, it ended up in our net."

The Rangers returned to the locker room for intermission a bit shell-shocked, stunned that they found themselves trailing. How could they not? Nobody could expect the Kings to sneak one past Lundqvist with so little time left.

Between the first and second periods, Girardi said that the players talked at length about putting the goal behind them, about finding a way to forget about it. He insisted that, "We didn't let that goal bother us."

And maybe it didn't. The Rangers looked futile against Kings goalie Jonathan Quick, who stopped all 32 of their shots. Even after Carter's goal, they came out strong in the second period, to no avail. Ultimately, that one goal, no matter when it occurred, didn't completely cost the Rangers the game.

Nonetheless, not even the Rangers themselves could deny that the goal changed the tenor of the contest.

Rick Nash called it, "A tough one." After two consecutive overtime losses to open the series, the feeling of, "Here we go again," swept over the Garden. The Cup seemed further away than ever.

"To give up a goal in the last second, it's a huge momentum swing for them," Nash said. "But there were still two periods left, so we can't make that our excuse."

Either way, the game changed Monday as quick as a heartbeat. Now the Rangers' hearts are barely beating at all.

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